Sunday, November 20, 2011

Bio380 Human Evolution Genes and Genomes Bioinformatics Practical

I have a bioinformatics practical class tomorrow and rather than hide it away, I thought I might as well share it with the world via this blog. Happy to receive comments on any mistakes or suggestions for improvements or additional reading.

Start the Blast search. The Blast search may take some time, so open a fresh tab and go to http://www.uniprot.org/Search for “foxp2_human”Spend some time exploring the information therein, while you wait for the Blast search to finish.

Return to the Blast search result. Scroll through the results. In the segment of the query spanning residues 241-698, how many differences does the chimp protein show from the following:Orang utan (Pongo pygmaeus) Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla)Lar gibbon (Hylobytes lar) Macaque (Macaca mulatta)Horse (Equus cabellus) Mouse (Mus musculus)Humans (Homo sapiens)

PS: use the sequence with header "FoxP2_Human"

Q. What differences do you find?

Q. How conservative or radical are the changes in amino-acid properties?

The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s masterpiece The Origin of Species changed forever the way we think about life on Earth, but also the human condition. One hundred and fifty years later—and 200 years after his birth—Darwin's big idea has never been more relevant or more challenging. The Rough Guide to Evolution provides a readable introduction to evolution and its influence on almost all aspects of human thought.

Features include:

The life and works of Darwin.

The growth of evolutionary thought.

The evidence for evolution.

The evolutionary history of life on Earth and human evolution

How Darwin’s breakthrough is still denied by creationists.

The wider impact of evolutionary thinking on science and society—from physics and cosmology to Guinness ads and The Simpsons.

The Rough Guide to Evolution has been distributed to 6000 undergraduate students through the Great Read at Birmingham initiative.

About Me

I obtained my medical education from the University of Cambridge and the London Hospital Medical College. I completed my specialist training as a medical microbiologist at Bart’s Hospital in London. In the mid-1990s, while completing a PhD in molecular bacteriology at Imperial College, London, I led a team of students to victory in the national quiz show University Challenge. In 1999, I took up a chair in microbiology at Queen’s University Belfast before moving to a chair in Birmingham in 2001. I took up my current position in April 2013